FIG. 1 illustrates a portion of a UMTS wireless communication network. As shown, user equipment (UE) wirelessly communicates with a Node-B serving the communication needs of a geographic area (often referred to as a cell or collection of cells). The UE may be a mobile phone, wireless equipped PDA, wireless equipped laptop, etc. The Node-B is often referred to as a base station in other communication standards. The Node-Bs communicate with a radio network controller (RNC). The RNC routes, for example, data between Node-Bs or on to another communication network such as the internet.
Communication from a Node-B to a UE is referred to as downlink or forward link communication, and communication from a UE to a Node-B is referred to as uplink or reverse link communication. In the uplink, various communication channels may exist.
In the UMTS uplink, an E-DCH (Enhanced Dedicated Channel) is used to provide high-speed scheduled data service. In the E-DCH, a distributed scheduling approach is taken where scheduling decisions are made at each Node-B and communicated to the UEs. A Node-B scheduler allocates the TFI (transport format indication) or TFC (transport format combination) that a UE can use, based on the available rise-over-thermal (RoT) or loading target of a cell. Two types of rate scheduling approaches are supported in UMTS. One is called relative grant mode (RG mode) scheduling and the other is called non-relative grant mode (non-RG mode) scheduling. In relative grant mode scheduling, a UE sends a scheduling information (SI) including power headroom and buffer status. The Node-B scheduler makes scheduling decisions and sends a relative rate grant (RG) message. It is up to the Node-B scheduler to determine an RG for its in-cell users and soft handoff (SHO) users that have radio links with the cell of interest. Currently, there is no mechanism specified in the standard to control sharing of available E-DCH resource between in-cell and SHO E-DCH users.